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Being of Service and the Need for Self-Care
07 May 2024

Being of Service and the Need for Self-Care

In the latest post, Neil writes about the opportunity to work with Crisis Text Line and reflects on the concept of being of service to others, and how it requires self-care and self-awareness to avoid creation of unhealthy co-dependencies. Drawing on insights from his book ‘Encounters with Life and Death,’ he explores how true education transformation should begin with creating space for self-care and fostering working conditions that enable people to show up and be of genuine service every day.

Join Neil in this exploration of how prioritizing self-care is essential for providing meaningful service to others.

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Kids Collab team working with children
07 May 2024

Navigating government channels: Our path to piloting a programme with the Gauteng Department of Education

In our recent blog series, we've delved into Kids Collab's journey towards understanding open educational resources (OER), followed by our transition into the social impact space alongside NBA. These significant milestones paved the way for an exciting new chapter: our collaboration on a six-month pilot project with the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE). Today, we're thrilled to share the extraordinary story behind this venture—an unconventional journey that we love to share.
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The Diverse, Integrated Beauty of Human Intelligence
30 April 2024

The Diverse, Integrated Beauty of Human Intelligence

In his newest blog post entitled ‘The Diverse, Integrated Beauty of Human Intelligence’, Neil proposes that we need to embrace and nurture our full human capability, which is distributed throughout our whole body, and rethink the purpose of education accordingly. He often likes to reflect on the diverse and integrated nature of human intelligence, and how it is often misunderstood or neglected by education systems. He recently drew inspiration from a science-fiction novel that proposes the quantum level of brain activity, and looked at some recent studies that explore this possibility. These illustrate the aspects of human intelligence that go beyond the conscious and rational mind, such as the sub-conscious, the gut microbiome, and the epigenetic memories.
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People standing on a beach watching the eclipse
19 April 2024

False promises about ‘AI’ in education

My personal experiences in using AI tools have shown me clearly that, in the right hands, these will enable extraordinary improvements in individual productivity. I’m less persuaded, though, that all the hype and promises about how these same tools are going to transform education systems is warranted, especially given the poor track record of previous technologies in delivering on promises, at least on a large scale, that were made equally enthusiastically when they first came into use. In this blog, I reflect on the phenomenon of AI hype in education and why I think it might be a distraction from what is needed for serious transformation of education systems.
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Kids Collab piloting the Parent Playbox
25 March 2024

Redefining Success: The Social Impact Path of Kids Collab

Kids Collab was founded with a clear mission: to enhance children's physical development and well-being, with a particular focus on fundamental movement skills during their critical preschool years. We started on this journey almost five years ago, and, while our mission has not changed, our solution and methods of delivery certainly have.

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Blog Post 1: Kids Collab's Early Strides into Open Education
23 February 2024

Kids Collab's Early Strides into Open Education

Kids Collab is thrilled to invite you on an incredible journey as we share our story in our upcoming blog series: "Reflections on our pathway to Open Education." 📚✨ In our very first post, "Kids Collab's Early Strides into Open Education," we take you back to where it all began – a friendship forged over a love for sports, travel, and, of course, children! From those early days of dreaming big, to conducting research in Melbourne, Australia, we share the ups and downs that paved the way for Kids Collab.
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Flowers of the Drakensberg
28 March 2022

The rock you focus on is the one you crash into

I am not much of a mountain biker, but one thing I learned very early in my few outings on a mountain bike is that the more you focus on the rocks on your trail the more likely you are to crash into them. The alternative is not to ignore them, but to observe them and then identify the pathway around them – focusing your energy and attention on where you want to go rather than what you want to avoid.

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AI2
29 April 2021

The Growth of Artificial Intelligence in Africa – On diversity and representation

As the world ushers in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) –  which is characterized by increasingly blurred lines between the digital, biological, and physical worlds (Ndung’u and Signé) – technologists are coming to grips with the opportunities of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and the Internet of Things. These and other emerging technologies offer exciting possibilities; in theory, they might allow us to galvanize unprecedented socio-economic change and democratise access to services such as the internet, education, and healthcare. 

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